


Oh to lay in the shadows of the ones you've shown.

by lysiabeth



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternatively titled: what should have happened at the end of UTRH, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Light Angst, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 12:16:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16197362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lysiabeth/pseuds/lysiabeth
Summary: “I didn’t… What you asked me to do… I just couldn’t kill him, Jason. You know I couldn’t.” Bruce says, his voice soft and actually daring to sound somewhat remorseful, and Jason pushes Bruce off of him with a grunt, kicks at him for good measure.





	Oh to lay in the shadows of the ones you've shown.

He’s flicking at the lighter hard enough for it to spark, but too quickly for the flame to catch. His knuckles are burning and bloodied and he’s pretty sure one of his ribs are broken, the bone and bruised skin tugging underneath his clothes.

He doesn’t hear the Bat approach but he can sense him, and Jason flicks at the lighter once more so that the flame lights up his face.

“Red Hood.” The Batman says, all tough and anger seeping through.

Jason blows the flame out and pockets the lighter. He doesn’t turn.

It’s unfair, Jason thinks. He’s not even in the hood or any part of his costume, just a Gotham civilian on a rooftop looking beat up, but still the Batman doesn’t have the decency to call him by his name. 

“What do you want, Bruce.” Jason sighs. His rib is definitely broken, the injury having settled now without any immediate care given when he first got it. The sigh sends a shock of pain across his abdomen and up his side, but the sad thing is Jason is used to pain by now.

The Batman is silent. He’s just standing, hands clenched into fists by his thighs and Jason can’t see him but he probably has a face on under the mask like he wants to punch something.

“What are you doing here?” Batman finally asks, and Jason wishes he hadn’t put the lighter away because he’s itching for something to distract himself with. So he closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath and tries not to gasp at the pinching pain in his rib cage. He turns, leans his elbows back against the railing, and Bruce is glaring daggers at him behind the cowl.

“I’m just in the neighbourhood. Needed some air.” Jason shrugs, voice nonchalant, and he notices how Bruce’s jawline tenses for a moment before relaxing again.

“This isn’t your neighbourhood.”

“Fuck  _ sakes _ , old man. Are you going to beat me up every time I so much as put a toe in your precious Gotham?” Jason asks, shoving hands into his pockets and standing up to his full height, and something inside him glows when he can look Bruce in the eye.

He never used to be able to do that, before. Would stand on the bottom step of the staircase in the manor when he and Bruce were leaving so he could place his hands on the man’s shoulders and joke about how one day it would be Bruce having to stand on the steps to look up at him.

Bruce used to laugh. Would look at him with a soft look in his eyes and try to scuff Jason’s ear lightly and then nag him about getting into the car because Alfred was waiting.

“I want to know why the Red Hood is creeping around. Is there anything I should be concerned about?” Bruce asks, and Jason wants to scream at him. There’s plenty to be concerned about - but nothing Bruce has any time for. Nothing bruce would think is important. Jason standing on a rooftop in Gotham with no weapons or Hood is something that Bruce should definitely be concerned about, but as usual he’s clueless when it comes to his own downfalls.

Jason clicks his tongue and shrugs.

“There’s a drug cartel working out of Antonio’s, but I’m on it.”

“You’re on it?” Bruce asks, voice drenched in disbelief, and it makes Jason defensive.

“Yes, I’m on it. A Bat in the way would only mess it up.” Jason says, because the Bats always  _ do _ , and Bruce pulls himself so his back is ramrod straight, and crosses his arms.

“Do I need to remind you that what happens in Gotham’s underworld is none of your business?” He asks, all condescending and with the ‘I am your authority figure’ voice, and Jason scoffs.

“Not my business? B, the Gotham underworld  _ is _ my business. Remember?” Jason is smirking. He’s just pressing and pressing and pressing on that sore spot of Bruce’s, can almost feel that vein in his forehead popping.

“I remember you getting your ass handed to you a few weeks back by Black Mask. Rumour is the Red Hood still has a bounty on his head for making it out of that alive.” Bruce says, and Jason hates that he knows that, his smirk slipping right off his face.

He has nothing else on him except the lighter, and Jason just throws it, the plastic bouncing off Bruce’s cowl in a way that should be comical but just makes Jason growl. Bruce does nothing to try and even move out of the way and Jason thinks that makes him angrier; the way he just stands there.

“Go away, Batman. This rooftop is occupied.” Jason says, going to turn back to the view behind him, and just as Bruce is out of his peripheral vision the man dares to reach out a hand and place it on Jason’s shoulder. 

As if he has the right.

Jason is turning right back around and lunging before he realises. A knee to Bruce’s abdomen and a hand like a vice around his neck, grunting, and Bruce recoils for a second at the shock of it before he’s hitting Jason back. An elbow to the nose which would have hit if Jason hadn’t kicked Bruce’s knee out from under him. 

It was a bad move. Bruce has one hand on Jason’s shoulder and the other half outstretched in the curve of a right hook, only to stumble as his footing gives way due to Jason’s mass. Jason kicks at his knee again, scrappy, his bare-fisted punch no match for the cowl it hits, but he’s so past the point of caring he just keeps going, and going, and going.

The wind is pushed out of him as Bruce drops them both, has his knee on Jason’s chest and a hand around his throat and Jason thinks ‘ _ finally _ ’ but Bruce… Pauses. His eyes widen and Jason can feel the hot tears prick at his eyes before he realises what Bruce is looking at.

It’s a scar, white against his skin and jagged to hell because Jason couldn’t get a good angle in the mirror to see what he was doing when he was trying to patch it up after he’d finally dragged himself out of the debris and ashes of the blown up apartments.

From the look on Bruce’s face, he’s just about figured that out too.

“I didn’t… What you asked me to do… I just couldn’t kill him, Jason. You know I couldn’t.” Bruce says, his voice soft and actually daring to sound somewhat remorseful, and Jason pushes Bruce off of him with a grunt, kicks at him for good measure.

“I never wanted you to kill the Joker. I just wanted my dad.” Jason spits, lip wobbling, and he crawls away from Bruce until his ribs sting and his arms gives out under him. His nose is running blood and snot and he desperately tries to wipe at the last few tears threatening to spill over. Fuck. This is not how Jason had planned his night to go.

“Jay, I-”

“Shut the fuck up.” Jason is seething. He’s not in the mood. He’s let Bruce speak over him for too long and he’s over it. There’s a hole the shape of Bruce’s fist where Jason’s heart is meant to be and he aches, every fight they have threatening for it to split wider until Jason cracks in half.

He hates Bruce. Sometimes more than the Joker, when he’s out on patrol as the Red Hood and putting down the bad guys Bruce will never have the guts to put down himself.

The blood has slowed to a dribble and Jason wipes his nose with his sleeve, keeping his scowl on Bruce. The man is slumped against the railing that just a few minutes ago Jason was leaning against himself, and he’s fiddling with his fingers for a few seconds before he’s pulling his hands up to his cowl and pulling it off, over his head, and throwing it to the asphalt beside him.

Jason remembers something Talia said, long ago. About how it was funny the way the world worked; that Bruce Wayne’s biggest downfall had been the boy he’d picked with the moral compass that stood against everything Bruce Wayne had grown up believing, but he’d put his whole heart into loving that boy anyway.

“You have better things to be doing than getting into fights with unarmed nineteen year olds, old man.” Jason says, jaw tight and turning his head up to the sky. It’s cloudy, as usual. The lights casting an orange hue over the horizon and the tips of Gotham’s tallest buildings disappearing under the skyline.

“I didn’t come for a fight.” Bruce says, and Jason slowly tips his head back to him. He hasn’t had a shave in a few days, a scraggly beard dotting his jawline, hair askew, dark circles under his eyes. Jason shrugs.

“Could have fooled me.” He says, and wishes he’s thought twice about throwing the lighter away. He needs something for his hands to do, sitting still like this.

“Jason.”

Jason sighs. Looks Bruce in the eye and raises both eyebrows.  _ What? _

“Are we going to talk about this?” Bruce asks, waving a hand between the two of them, and Jason smiles at him.

“Sure, Bruce. Let’s talk. Let’s talk about how your fifteen year old son died in a warehouse bomb that didn’t kill him on the blast, but instead was the broken bones and internal bleeding and asphyxiation that caused him to finally bite the bullet. How, once said son died, you buried him and didn’t have the guts to visit his grave often enough to notice that after his resurrection he clawed himself out of his own coffin, into a world he didn’t recognise but that recognised him, and ended up thrown in the Lazarus Pit to be trained under the League of mother fucking Assassins. 

Do you know what that feels like,  _ Bruce _ ? To be drowning and choking and feeling the most alive you ever have at the same time? To have every memory you thought you’d lost come back to you all at once - the fear that entails? The shock? How the woman who is meant to be the love of your life was so scared to bring me back to you because even she know how much of a coward you were? How my murderer was still free to walk the streets of Gotham whenever Arkham’s security decided to fall short one night? I have been talking, Bruce. I’ve told you what I wanted, and you didn’t listen.”

The hole in his chest is cracked wide open. Jason feels like a weight has been lifted, and he’s proud of himself that he managed not to shout by the end of it. Bruce is sat, still slumped, his hands in his lap and a pained look on his face.

A few moments pass. As usual, Bruce says nothing, and Jason feels like an idiot for even thinking this would get anywhere. The man is stuck so far on his own path of morality that he can’t consider anyone else's ideas or reasoning as to why they might disagree. Anger is coursing through Jason’s veins red hot, and he needs a smoke or a drink or a long fucking shower to feel like he isn’t about to vibrate out of his own skin.

“I did visit your grave. At first. Almost every day, actually. I’d get Alfred to drop me to the cemetery every morning he would leave for errands and I’d walk home after a few hours. I don’t even know what I did… Talk to you, mostly. And my parents. But then the months passed and Dick started to come back, and I could tell Alfred was worried…” Bruce sighs, scrubbing his hand down his face.

“I never meant to stop visiting. But I guess it turned into just another one of those things where I would go only on important dates, because every other time was like reliving the day all over again. I found you, that night. Got there so late most of the fires on the warehouse had burnt out and you were almost cold to touch. Gone. And I vowed to myself I’d never put another kid like that in danger, that I couldn’t let the next Robin be another you but… Jesus Christ, Jason.” Bruce says, voice breaking as he says Jason’s name, and he’d be kind of disgusted that Bruce was crying if it weren’t for the fact that he could feel hot tears on his own cheeks.

It’s the first time he’s ever heard this. The thought sends something bittersweet through him and he wants to stamp it out, go back to the blind fury and hatred he felt for the man before him, but he realises with a sudden thought that he’d never hated him at all - just hated what he didn’t do.

“You’re a real piece of work, old man.” Jason says, finally, pulls his knees up to his chest and rests his cheek against his thigh, and Bruce just looks at him like he’s looking right through him, face blank.

“Yeah, Jay-lad. I sure am.”

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone else kept up at night thinking about how Bruce just threw that batarang at Jason's neck ha ha :)) anyways. Don't let me read Stargazer and talk to the Jason Todd discord at the same time because then we get stuff like this.


End file.
